The two girls stood shoulder to shoulder. Rosie, it proved, was a little the taller. Maida continued to look at her after they had resumed their places on the grass. “What a beauty she is,” she thought; and she too was withheld by shyness and a sense of delicacy from making this comment before the others. Rosie was certainly handsome. Tall, active, proud-looking; great black eyes lighted by stars; a mass of black hair breaking into high waves and half curls; cheeks as smooth as satin and stained a deep crimson--ivory-white, jet-black, coral-crimson--that was Rosie. Maida had always called her Rose-Red. “But the greatest change has come in Dicky and me,” Maida ended. “We have both lost our lameness. You don’t limp, Dicky, and I don’t. Let’s race to the gate and back.” Dicky was on his feet in a minute. Arthur called, “One to make ready, two for a show--” At the word, “_Go_” they were off. Dicky was more active but Maida was taller. The race finished a tie. The blood which Maida’s running brought to her cheeks painted roses there; not the deep crimson roses which bloomed perpetually in Rosie’s face but transient blossoms, delicately pink. And under that flush, her face, a healthy ivory, looked well. Her big gray eyes were filled with happiness and the torrent of her pale-gold feathery hair seemed to gush from her head like living light. They sat and talked until luncheon and immediately after luncheon gathered on the lawn and talked again. Maida still had questions to ask and comments to make. “You have all grown,” she said once, “but somehow I think the little children have grown the most and Dorothy and Mabel more than anybody! Their eyes still look like great blue marbles and their hair as though it had been curled over a candlestick. Isn’t it marvelous how they keep exactly the same height. Twins are magical creatures, aren’t they? As for Betsy and Delia--they’re great big girls. I suppose Betsy still runs away every chance she gets. On the whole I think Molly and Timmie have changed the least. Does Timmie still fall into all the ‘pud-muddles?’ Molly still looks like a darling brown robin and Timmie like a brown bogle. Don’t you remember I used to call them Robin and Bogle.” The children answered all her questions. Yes, Betsy still ran away. No, Bogle had quieted down. He didn’t fall into “pud-muddles” any more. Of course they had their questions to ask Maida about her year in Europe. And she told them of her experiences in Italy, Switzerland, France, and England. But though she answered them instantly, and with the fullness of detail which had always been her characteristic, it seemed at moments as though her mind were not all on what she was saying. Once or twice, she even interrupted herself to start something which had nothing to do with her subject. But apparently, both times, she thought better of it and checked a tongue which obviously was yearning to speed on in the interest of that unknown subject.